Anastasia soon finished her compulsive sobbing; she got up from where she sat and crept silently from her hiding place. No-one was around to see her as she walked into the park, head bowed and body hunched in a pitiful effort to hide herself.

She'd first started to grow the wings a few weeks before; at first they'd been small and she'd been able to hide them from her parents and sisters, but eventually they'd grown too big to hide. The final straw for her parents was her eyes changing colour; they'd told her in no uncertain terms to leave the house.